If you're a musician, composer, or even a student of music, and you own an iPad , there are certain apps and accessories that will make the device all the more relevant to you. Sure, Apple's own GarageBand app is one such indispensable piece of software, but there are plenty of others, from stellar headphones that won't short-change your audible experience to MIDI controllers and docks.
The whole concept of the iPad is that it's highly portable, even more so than a laptop PC, letting you drag it onto the bus just as easily as to the coffee shop or the recording studio. Because it's so portable, it can be with you whenever musical inspiration strikes, so you can record an idea for a sound or a sound itself on the spot.
Several of the apps that earned a mention on this list of iPad gear for musicians are for recording and mixing, and while you may not need to buy all of them, you should at least know what competing apps offer so you can choose the ones that will best meet your needs. For example, one sound creation app that we like offers a creative sandbox-like experience, while another is specific to synthesizer sounds. Additionally, for hardware accessories, we just happen to mention two different MIDI controllers: one that's fairly robust and a second that's smaller but manages to get the job done if your needs are modest.
Here are some of the apps and accessories that you at least need to know about if you're a musician with an iPad. Jamie Lendino, Tim Gideon, and Jeffrey L. Wilson contributed to this article.
Bowers & Wilkins C5 In-Ear Headphones
The Bowers & Wilkins C5 In-Ear Headphones offer beautiful, rich bass and fantastic audio performance inside the most secure-fitting earphone design in its under-$200 price range. These headphones offer the most secure fit you'll find aside from custom-molded ear monitors. Outfitted with iPad inline controls, these earphones are among the best an iPad-carrying musicians can find.
M-Audio BX5 D2
The M-Audio BX5 D2 are studio monitors for recording. These speakers work directly with the iPad's headphone jack, as well as with StudioConnect (see previous slide). As long as you're not expecting deep bass extension, they can handle just about any task you throw at them. And they sound great, if relentlessly revealing, when listening to music, too.
Samson Carbon 49 USB MIDI Controller
MIDI controllers for the iPad are springing up all over the place. Samson has entered the fray with the Carbon 49, a stylish controller keyboard that doubles as an iPad dock. Well, sort of. The Samson Carbon 49 isn't quite what it seems at first glance—the "dock," such as it is, is merely a place to rest the iPad, as there's no actual dock connector of any kind, but the Carbon 49 is still worth a look, particularly for any musician that needs a USB-powered controller for a desktop machine as well as an iPad. Also note that you'll need an Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit to hook up your iPad, too.
Alesis Q25
Smaller than the Samson Carbon 49, the Alesis Q25 ditches an array of knobs and sliders to become a sleeker MIDI controller. The Q25 is a 25-note, velocity-sensitive MIDI keyboard with a built-in USB interface. It promises accurate MIDI control, portability, and not much else. As long as your needs are modest, it's a solid controller at a bargain price.
iRig MIDI
There are several ways you can hook up a MIDI keyboard to an iPhone or iPad, but IK Multimedia has one of the simplest. The iRig MIDI is a basic Core MIDI interface for iOS devices. It works with keyboards, electronic drum sets, drum machines, and pedal boards, and lets you control apps like Apple GarageBand 1.2 ($4.99, 4 stars) much more easily, at least when recording actual music tracks.
Griffin StudioConnect
Griffin's StudioConnect is an iPad dock for musicians with mic and line inputs for recording. It doesn't have every feature you would need to turn your iPad into a full-blown miniature recording studio, though. The StudioConnect lets you connect your electric guitar, bass guitar, or MIDI keyboard to your iPad. It looks sharp, and puts your iPad front and center as the centerpiece of a music studio.
Apple GarageBand
For music composition, Apple's own GarageBand is among the top must-have apps. In its latest iteration, GarageBand takes several steps toward becoming a music app that professionals could use, including note editing, an expanded sound palate, and more robust recording tools. For $5, you can't go wrong.
Moog Music Animoog
Animoog is a slightly expensive iPad App ($29.99) that brings the warm, expressive, fat sound inherent to 1970s monophonic analog synthesizers right to your fingertips. Moog Music says Animoog captures "the vast sonic vocabulary of Moog Synthesizers," complete with "a boutique's worth of high-end outboard and analog signal processors." It doesn't quite match the hardware Moog experience, but it's not that far off, either.
NanoStudio
Blip Interactive's NanoStudio is a fun and inspiring recording environment with plenty of hidden power for those who are so inclined. The app is a little rough around the edges, but it features numerous recording styles, flexible track and mixer views, and more power than you ever thought possible in an iPad app. NanoStudio could use some better factory sounds and a little more polish, but it's still fun to use and spurs creativity.
FL Studio Mobile HD
Image Line's FL Studio Mobile HD app is a powerful iPad recording tool that's essentially GarageBand for electronic music composers, with synthesizer modules, dance-oriented samples, and loop-based recording tools. This app isn't as powerful as GarageBand or NanoStudio, but it sounds good out of the box and offers excellent loop-based recording tools.
SampleTank
IK Multimedia's SampleTank sounds good and offers fun live jamming, although its use as an all-purpose composition tool is more limited. The SampleTank app proves that you don't have to imitate GarageBand to make a fun recording environment on the iPad. When connected to the optional iRig MIDI, you can input notes with any regular MIDI keyboard. Best of all, you can get some pretty usable results out of this thing, as long as you're not expecting a regular recording environment.
Sunrizer
The Sunrizer iPad app by BeepStreet offers a convincing and lush-sounding virtual analog synthesizer for five bucks. The main interface looks just like a miniature version of a Roland or Novation virtual analog synthesizer. There are 216 preset sounds in the default bank, plus an extra 36 in a separate Sunrizer 2 bank. Sunrizer captures the feel and the sound of analog instruments to an amazing degree.
Reactable Mobile
If you can get your head around it, Reactable Mobile is a unique iPad app for composing ambient and electronic music on the fly. It's so foreign in design from other recording tools that accomplishing even basic things, like starting and stopping playback, aren't immediately clear, until after you've spent some time fiddling with it. Once you're adept at using the unusual app, you'll find yourself creating sounds in a way that's only possible on a touchscreen tablet.